Thursday, July 12, 2007

 Italian Interior Minister Amato Infuriates Sicilians with Wife Beating Tradition Claim

The ANNOTICO Report

 

My Sicilian female relatives are the toughest, (but kindest) women I ever met, and I can't imagine any of my uncles raising a hand, or any of their wives tolerating it.

 

I dare say, any one of the wives could beat the crap out of wimpy Giuliano Amato, and might want to, when they hear he is accusing them of being "daisies". :) :)

 

Thanks to Pat Gabriel and Frashetta

 

Interior Minister Upsets Sicilians

 

Amato in trouble over wife- beating comment

 

ANSA Rome,

July 11, 2007 

 

 Interior Minister Giuliano Amato upset Sicilians on Wednesday by saying that wife beating was a traditional part of their culture.

Amato made the gaffe during a conference here on the integration of Muslim immigrant communities.

"No God ever authorised a man to beat a woman. It's a Sicilian-Pakistani tradition which would have us believe otherwise," the minister said.

Amato, a former Socialist premier now serving in the centre-left government of Premier Romano Prodi, went on to liken the "customs and traditions" prevalent in Sicily up until the 1970s to "those that have been imported by certain groups of Muslim immigrants". The remarks immediately landed Amato in hot water.

Opposition MP and ex-minister Stefania Prestigiacomo, who is Sicilian, threatened to sue him.

"Amato talks off the top of his head. Either he immediately apologises to Sicilians or I'll sue him for libel," she said.

Another Sicilian MP belon ging to opposition chief Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party also demanded an apology.

"Our island's culture acknowledges women's primary role in society and no one has the right to define a lack of respect towards women a Sicilian characteristic," lawmaker Giuseppe Marinello said.

"No such Sicilian-Pakistani tradition exists," he added indignantly.

Ignazio La Russa, the House Whip for the rightist National Alliance party, said that "in all societies in the past, chauvinism led to disrespect and sometimes violence against women but it is a huge whopper to say that in Sicily, the name of God was ever invoked to justify such abuses".

Last December, Amato offended Muslim communities with comments on the sharia, the Islam-inspired law system.

Speaking at another Rome conference on cross-cultural integration, the minister said that "sharia is an expression of a chauvinistic culture which belongs to certain backward societies".

 

 

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